Dot & Cut (Fine Motor & Scissor Skills)

After many moons my preschooler is finally holding the scissors correctly in one hand instead of using both of his hands. This sometimes requires me to remind him but with practice I am sure it will become a natural position.

To encourage this behavior we do various cutting activities, just like today’s dot and cut!

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We started out with 4 blank sheets of paper then drew shapes on them. A spiral which my 5 year old dotted with blue paint. The dotting in itself is a fine motor skill because the child has to aim his dots onto the spiral.

I also made a zigzag page.

Then an arch way lined page.

As well as various size squares.

Once the dots were dry, which the first should be by the time you are done with page 4. We got a scissors out to practice our cutting.

Side note: I couldn’t find the kids smaller scissors for this activity as we are currently packing for a move next week! So my preschooler used a normal sized one. This IS a supervised activity.

The kids will either cut along the lines drawn or from dot to dot which ever is easier and grabs their fancy!

This is fantastic! I have never seen anything like it. SOO simple, yet I am certain my youngster will have a blast doing this! TY for linking at HomeschoolCreations that’s how I found this post! Love this site btw

Just love this idea and so easy to implement at home. I teach preschool and I too like to use lines I draw on paper to help little hands cut. It is a skill that needs to be practiced consistently to be mastered. I like how you added the colorful dots. Giving this post a shout out on this coming Tuesday Talk link-up of ours. Please visit my blog to read what I say about your creative way to teach children how to cut. Thank you for linking up with us.

[…] Powerful Mothering shares her ideas of using dots to dot in a pattern followed by using scissors to cut it. We are still on straight line scissor activities, but this could become quite complex for a more advanced child! […]